2004 Constituencies Revision Summary

The Constituency Commission Report on Dáil Constituencies, 2004 proposes some major changes. Five new constituencies will be created: Longford Westmeath, Meath East, Meath West, Roscommon-South Leitrim and Sligo-North Leitrim. These will replace the four existing constituencies of Longford Roscommon, Meath, Sligo Leitrim and Westmeath. Most significantly these changes remove the provincial boundary breach between Leinster and Connaught of the old Longford Roscommon constituency.

The number of seats is reduced in two constituencies: Cork North Central (from 5 to 4) and Dublin North Central (from 4 to 3). Two three seater constituencies gain an extra seat: Dublin Mid West (newly created in the 1998 revision) and Kildare North.

There are further boundary changes to eleven constituencies outside Dublin: Clare, Cork North West, Cork South Central, Cork South West, Donegal North East, Donegal South West, Kerry North, Kerry South, Kildare South, Limerick East and Limerick West. All of the twelve Dublin constituencies have also been revised apart from Dublin South East and Dun Laoighaire.

These changes leave the total number of Dáil seats unchanged both in the whole country (166) and in Dublin (47), but increase the number of constituencies from 42 to 43.

The progress of the Electoral (Amendment) Bill 2005 is available from the Oireachtas website. The Bill was enacted as Act number 16 of 2005 and was signed by the President on 9 July 2005.